Have you ever experienced a reality so dire that you felt everything and everyone was against you? I’m sure we all have to one degree or another. Well this morning as I read Psalm 3, I found such a wonderful example from King David, as he progressed from reality to rest. Check this out.
THE REALITY (3:1-2)
“Oh Lord, how many are my foes! Many are against me;
Many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.”
The first thing I noticed here was that he took his “reality” to the Lord. He laid it out there to Him. Not that God didn’t already know what was going on, but talking to God about his circumstances opened the door for God to minister to his soul and minister He did!
THE RESPONSE (3:3-4)
“But You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cried to the Lord, and he answered me from His holy hill.”
David wasn’t denying the stress of the circumstances in which he found himself. He had acknowledged his “reality” before God, and now he was choosing to shift his focus from the horizontal to the vertical – “But YOU, O Lord”. The reality of who God is — a shield, David’s glory, the Lifter of David’s head” — trumped the circumstances.
David didn’t go into the “I got this” mode of self-sufficiency, but he humbly cried out to the Lord.
THE RESULT (3:5-6)
“I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.”
The result of crying out to God and acknowledging who He is had paved the way for God’s peace to settle into David’s heart. Note that not only did David “lie down”, but he slept. How often do we neglect to really cry out to the Lord about the things that are pressing in on us? The result of that is that instead of lying down and actually sleeping, we are just doing our fretting in a different position?
God is in charge of our laying down and our waking. He is the sustainer of our lives. Think about it. If God can keep me alive through the night, then He is certainly able to protect and sustain me through my day as well.
The Hebrew definition of the word “sustained” (sāmaḵ) is to support or uphold. But it was also used reflexively in the Hebrew language to mean to lean or lay upon, rest upon, lean against. Here is the God of the universe, and David, through his praying and acknowledging, is in fact his leaning on God.
I love the picture that comes to my mind with that. Imagine a little boy, afraid of the on-going thunderstorm, being able to lie down and sleep because he is leaning against his daddy. That’s God to us!!! We need to lean in and rest.
THE RESOLVE (3:6)
“I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me all around.”
I will not be afraid. That’s such a strong resolve, isn’t it? Why was it that David was able to have such resolve? Because he knew he had God as a “shield about (him)“. A shield in Hebrew (māḡēn) was a buckler used for defense. Think about that. David was saying that, while there were many thousands of people who had set themselves against him all around, he knew he had a God who was a shield, defending him from their attacks.
As I sit here and type, I imagine a little boy, facing a pack of bullies, but that little guy is choosing to standing behind his daddy. It’s like he’s saying, “you have to go through my dad to get to me!” What a wonderful confidence we have as believers with such a strong, capable God and Father!!
THE REST (3:8)
“Salvation belongs to the Lord…”
Not only did David experience physical rest (laying down and sleeping), but he experienced emotional rest as he acknowledged that God was defending and fighting for him. David knew that God had anointed him as king of Israel, and thus he knew that God would save him because God’s plans NEVER fail.
Summing it up. As you face hard circumstances, it doesn’t matter as much what is going on “around” you as it matters what is going on “within” you. I love how, through his hard time, David had his trust in God reinforced. His “trust muscles” grew!! And the same can happen for us, but only as we choose to shift our focus from our problem to our Protector.